The disclosures made herein relate to an information recording/reproducing apparatus which enables scheduling of periodic recording of information such as audio or video.
There has conventionally been available an information recording/reproducing apparatus such as a video tape recorder (VTR), a DVD recorder, or a hard disk recorder which enables scheduled recording of a television broadcast program (television program). In the information recording/reproducing apparatus of this type, a user operates the information recording/reproducing apparatus to set (register) scheduling information containing designation of a recording target channel or a time window in the information recording apparatus (scheduling setting). Then, when the time of starting recording arrives, the information recording/reproducing apparatus is activated based on the scheduling information to automatically record a designated channel program until recording end time. When the recording ends, the scheduling information is automatically erased.
Television programs include a serial program (such as serial drama) which is broadcast periodically, for example, every day or every week. To deal with recording of such a serial program, an information recording/reproducing apparatus has been developed, which can carry out setting to repeat scheduled recording at a cycle such as every day or every week (repeated scheduled recording setting). In this information recording/reproducing apparatus, once information for repeated scheduled recording setting (hereinafter, referred to as “repeated scheduling information”) is set (registered), the repeated scheduling information is not erased after execution of one automatic recording operation. The information recording/reproducing apparatus periodically carries out repeated scheduled recording at the set cycle. Thus, the user does not have to carry out cumbersome work such as setting of scheduling information for each broadcasting of the serial program.
However, in the conventional information recording/reproducing apparatus, the repeated scheduling information is not erased unless the user actively carries out an erasure operation. In the conventional information recording/reproducing apparatus, the recorded data deletion and the scheduling information erasure are operations independent of each other. Thus, in the case of erasing certain scheduling information and deleting recorded data recorded based on the scheduling information from the recording medium, the user has to carry out these operations separately from each other.
Thus, the conventional information recording/reproducing apparatus has the following problems. For example, it is presumed that the user has recorded a favorite serial program (serial drama) by using repeated scheduled recording setting, and the serial program has finished. In this case, the repeated scheduled recording is continued irrespective of program changes unless the user erases repeated scheduling information regarding the serial program. Accordingly, when the user does not wish to view a new program started after the end of the serial program, useless recording is carried out. Thus, the user is required to erase the repeated scheduling information. However, if the user has registered many pieces of scheduling information, discovery of scheduling information which the user wishes to erase may be difficult.
The following is a related art to the present invention.    [Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-328485.